Bought a new battery - the range just does not make sense ( Chamrider)

ryan1685

100 W
Joined
Apr 3, 2015
Messages
126
Well I was really excited when I found a new battery on aliexpress that stated that it had 43.2AH @52 and fit my fatbike frame. Seeing that was almost 2.3KWh's or 2300wh's I though for sure the battery should give me a 90km of range on pure throttle considering that the previous battery I had - which is a 28ah 52V ( 1,456Wh's) from Luna cycle that I bought over 3 years ago gave me about 56kms on similar terrain, full throttle. 2246.4/1,456 = 1.543 the capacity of the original battery. 1.543*56 = 86Kms. Anyways after 2 months of waiting the battery finally arrived and I tested it out from 58.8v soc and I only got 70kms and the last 15kms were pathetic and could not get over 30kph .

Here is the battery I bought


https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001607523249.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.2e004800SKY7Yt&algo_pvid=14869333-15ce-4966-9eda-4dc09bc0bf5a&algo_expid=14869333-15ce-4966-9eda-4dc09bc0bf5a-10&btsid=0bb0623916205088403238961e2f01&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

Any thoughts, kind of pissed right now seeing I spent $1250 CAD on a battery for essentially nothing. Seeing the battery is over 50 percent bigger WH wise and uses 21700 cells, I am blown away that the range was not much better than a 3 year old battery that has been abused to heck. Was I ripped off? Chamrider seems to have some good feedback.
 
With Ali sellers you have to assume they are lying scammers.

Getting recommendations from trusted fellow members here can increase the odds of finding one just not quite as egregious as most of them.
 
john61ct said:
With Ali sellers you have to assume they are lying scammers.

Getting recommendations from trusted fellow members here can increase the odds of finding one just not quite as egregious as most of them.

Depressing, I was really hoping there was some centralized form of governance on alie now seeing it is a multi billion dollar company. Other people who bought the battery seemed happy, but they probably had nothing to compare it with. It would be nice to know the batteries true capacity. It was weird, I charged it to the point where it showed 59.0v on the battery indicator on my C8 display, but the supplied charger did not turn off at that point even though it only charges to 58.8v. The next day when I turned the bike on, the battery displayed 57.7 even though I had not used it. So I do not know if I even started with a full charge.
 
Ali is just a market platform, like a river with toll charges for boats carrying cargo,

they make billions no matter how crappy the stuff flowing through.

Unlike eBay they favour sellers rather than protecting buyers.

They would likely not be so big and profitable trying to impose eBay style policies on China's "wild west" business culture.
 
ryan1685 said:
I charged it to the point where it showed 59.0v on the battery indicator on my C8 display, but the supplied charger did not turn off at that point even though it only charges to 58.8v

14S means defining 100% SoC as "stop charging between 56.5V and 58.0V"

Former better for longevity, latter might give an extra 5-10% more range (capacity utilization).

Holding CV stage for a while (e.g. to finish required cell balancing process) adds a little extra, but too long harms longevity.

> The next day when I turned the bike on, the battery displayed 57.7 even though I had not used it. So I do not know if I even started with a full charge.

Yes that is plenty high. Trying to get every mAh of capacity utilization will murder lifespan

especially since the cells used are likely crap quality.

The exception is if you do a capacity test yourself, once in a while does not hurt so long as normal use cycling is gentler.

The point you stop is even more critical, leaving 20% SoC in there can triple cycle lifespan compared to 10%
 
And note there will always be a bit of drop from the stop charge setpoint even if the cells are isolated from all loads.

But do not keep the cells at high SoC% for long, store at midpoint and only charge up just before riding is best for longevity.
 
ryan1685 said:
nicobie said:
Bad news! I'd be very, very careful when charging.

could you elaborate ?

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=87975

Plus, that it would let the charger even get to showing 59v isn't a good start, and dropping over a volt after cutoff on top of that makes it seem like something is either way out of balance in the groups, or self discharging, neither of which is great.
 
Voltron said:
Did you measure the charger voltage etc with an actual multimeter, or just going by the indicated display voltage?

Just the bafang display. I let it charge to full last night and the charger turned off eventually. When I turned the bike on this morning it showed 58.7v, so maybe I was being paranoid. I will go out today for a long range test. Thanks for all the information people!!!
 
john61ct said:
And note there will always be a bit of drop from the stop charge setpoint even if the cells are isolated from all loads.

But do not keep the cells at high SoC% for long, store at midpoint and only charge up just before riding is best for longevity.

Thanks for all the insight. I let it charge till full. Turned on the bike this morning and it read 58.7. So maybe I was being paranoid. still hard to think that it is really a 43.2ah battery when it is the same footprint of my 28ah battery. The only difference being 18650 v.s 21700 cells which should only lead to a 30 percent increase maximum in capacity .
 
john61ct said:
Ali is just a market platform, like a river with toll charges for boats carrying cargo,

they make billions no matter how crappy the stuff flowing through.

Unlike eBay they favour sellers rather than protecting buyers.

They would likely not be so big and profitable trying to impose eBay style policies on China's "wild west" business culture.

I agree, but the battery seems well built. I guess I will figure out pretty soon how good it is. Just scary because I do not want to burn my house down
 
Just fyi, most of the capacity increase is from improved chemistry of the cells over the last several years, not from the cans being bigger. :thumb:
 
ryan1685 said:
Well I was really excited when I found a new battery on aliexpress that stated that it had 43.2AH @52 and fit my fatbike frame.
:lol: found your problem
 
ryan1685 said:
still hard to think that it is really a 43.2ah battery when it is the same footprint of my 28ah battery. The only difference being 18650 v.s 21700 cells which should only lead to a 30 percent increase maximum in capacity .
Yes, it's def not, you got ripped off for sure, at least on energy capacity.

Holding voltage says nothing about that, nor quality of the cells, nor state of health, nor power capacity.

Testing for each of those indicators is relatively straightforward, at least ballpark accuracy, but does require gear and skillz.
 
Hello guys,

the very same Aliexpress seller (Chamrider) offers meanwhile customized 14S13P packs with 18600 cells, that should sum up in enormous 45.5Ah. They promise it would consist of genuine Samsung 3500 mAh cells. Has anyone tried such a big pack?

I am a bit concerned about the BMS quality and self-balancing function. On the other hand, the deal seems to be incredibly appealing as neither UnitPackPower nor em3ev build such big packs. Are there any caveats? How is the ryan1685 experience with this huge triangle after one year of usage?
 
Some of the batteries in that link look really weak. Half of them are Samsung 29E cells and have a BMS limit of 50A. Samsung 29E can do 2.75A continuous discharge. So even 13 in parallel is only 35.75A continuous discharge for the battery. The OP may have just been exceeding that and getting really high voltage drop and so the BMS killed discharge before he even reached capacity.

Nothing against Samsung, my own daily driver battery is using Samsung 35E cells with a continuous discharge rating of 8A per cell, but I also use the weakest Baserunner controller Grin Technologies sells so my current demands are not super high. Even given that, I don't think I would even bother with a 29E cell battery. You'd have to gang too many in parallel to have sufficient discharge.
 
lnanek said:
Some of the batteries in that link look really weak. Half of them are Samsung 29E cells and have a BMS limit of 50A. Samsung 29E can do 2.75A continuous discharge. So even 13 in parallel is only 35.75A continuous discharge for the battery.

Thank you for reply, I would not buy weaker cells either because you get less capacity with the same weight. The seller promised to build the linked pack with the "best 186500" Samsung 35E cells for a small extra charge, which would deliver over 40 Ah that is a lot for a single triangle pack. Unfortunatelly, Chamrider cannot add a good self-balancing BMS which makes me worry about the pack being too dangerous, especially taking into account how many cells it consists of and what can happen if some of them get out of balance in the long run. They have only two options: standard BMS or "BMS with bluetooth" :)

As long as the discharge rate is concerned, even 30A is enough for BBS02 and probably BBSHD motors.
 
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